With Father's Day this past Sunday, our intern Ariel Servadio talks about how cool dads don't freak when you work here:

When I was little, my father read me a book from his childhood, Friday the Arapaho Indian by A.M. Anderson. I heard the "true story" of a young Native American girl named Friday and her historical adventures. But if you've ever read Anderson's book, you'll know what I discovered when I was much older and my dad confessed the truth: Friday the Indian was a boy.

As a sleepy child, I heard the story of a powerful and adventurous young woman doing extraordinary things--and I believed it. As my father painstakingly changed pronouns and altered sex-related details while reading to me every night before bed, he planted the seed of limitless possibilities in my brain. It wasn't until I was nine years old that that idea was challenged: It was the end of third grade and the elementary-school music teacher was preparing our class for joining the school band the next year. When we were asked what instruments we would like to play, I raised my hand and said I wanted to play the bass guitar. "No," the music teacher replied, "I need big, strong boys to play the guitar next year." So I got stuck playing the alto saxophone. At least it wasn't the flute, I guess...

In honor of Em's husband's tell-almost-all article on Glamour.com and in the print mag (see previous post), we wrote a companion sidebar to the piece called "4 Ways Our Sex Blog Has Improved Our Sex Lives." It's true, writing and opining and joking about sex here on DailyBedpost does have its fringe benefits. But it's not all toe curls and spine tingles. (Besides, talking only about how amazing our sex lives are is a way to get rotten fruit thrown at our heads.) So here's the dark side of sex writing:

1. There are times when it gets to the end of a work day and the last thing we want to do is think about, talk about, or--god forbid--actually have sex. Not having sex makes us feel a bit like hypocrites, or charlatans, or just plain lazy bums. And as far as our fellas are concerned: we guess it'd be kind of a bummer if you married a hairdresser and, at the end of the day, she just couldn't be bothered to trim your locks for you; but then apply that to oral sex and, well, sometimes we bet our guys wished they'd married hairdressers instead...

"Tipping is sexy" (written on a dinner bill):

Sexist candybar:

Photo via iStock (NOT a pic of Colin and then-girlfriend)

This week is "Colin Week," in honor of our Yale intern, Colin Adamo, leaving the nest for the summer. Every day we've posted one of his own ruminations on sex and relationships. Today, his last day, he tries to figure out what a "real date" is, and in the process makes us wish we knew guys half as cool when we were in school:

Probably the most intimate meal I've ever had with a girl was in the morning, curled up in a big chair feeding cereal to each other. It was her favorite flavor by a generic brand and we were both still sandy-eyed and dressed in the comfiest clothing we owned. We poured a second bowl and scooched closer and smiled at each other over our barely-coherent early-morning conversation.

This would never, by itself, be considered a "real date."

But why should that be? I felt just as good in that moment as I have in the fanciest of restaurants or sipping the best bottles of wine I could afford (although this must be taken with a grain of salt as I'm a part-time employed full-time college student), if not better. Why is it that the stuffy-dinner-for-two trope sets the boundaries on what we consider a "real date"?

I've been playing with this idea ever since one girl told me we weren't going to kiss again until we went on "a real date," a playful and bubbly way to show that she was eager to both see me and kiss me again. She just needed to be shown that she was important. All sounds great. But what tripped me up were her words, "a real date." There must have been some miscommunication somewhere. I thought our first date had been one of the most whimsical date-concoctions I had ever created:

This week is "Colin Week," in honor of our Yale intern Colin Adamo leaving the nest for the summer. Every day we'll post one of his own ruminations on sex and relationships. Today, he takes issue with Psychology Today's answer to our question, "Why is virginity still defined strictly in terms of penile penetration?":

The Psychology Today blog's over-simplified dismissal of Em & Lo's virginity question just didn't sit well with me, especially in the wake of dealing with the touchy topic in my own life not too long ago. No, I wasn't awkwardly fumbling through my first sexual encounter myself. In fact, nobody was: that was the problem.

One of my best friends in the world, let's call her Hannah, would be a virgin by Psychology Today's (and the rest of our society's) standards. Despite the fact that she's slept with nearly as many women as I have and, as she's put it, "given a ton of blow jobs," she hasn't had the chance to partake in the "traditional" male-on-female penetrative sex act.

Hannah's been really frustrated recently by the fact that she'll be receiving her degree while still holding onto her V-Card, a feat that is rarely achieved by anyone these days. But it's totally unintentional. She hasn't spent her four years at college underground or buried behind a wall of books in the library. Her daddy never dragged her to a Purity Ball where he swore to protect her hymen. She's actually rather sexually active, and has been for quite some time. But because she hasn't had intercourse with a boy yet, society still brands her as a virgin--a total misnomer...